Apparently, this is a major victory of the patent system. This, this right here, this is what the patent system has come to. This is the destructive effect it's having on this once beautiful industry. Thanks to trolls like Apple and Microsoft, basic, elemental functionality is being removed from devices people already own.

The Europeans on this site should stop pretending that Europe is somehow more enlightened. you are not. you have your screwed up laws just like everyone else does.

Aye, I agree. Some places are worse than others, though, like e.g. here in Finland consumers still have some rights, or the Netherlands where downloading copyright-infringing material isn't illegal, only uploading it is.

Unfortunately I believe that EU will be pushed to adopting ever more IP-protection laws in the future and one day we will have no rights at all worth mentioning.